I Just Read About That…

 SOUNDTRACK: FRANCES CONE-Tiny Desk Concert #647 (September 8, 2017).

Frances Cone is a relatively new band (their second album is due out soon).

There’s keys, drums guitars and lots of harmonies.

Christina Cone sings primary vocals but Adam Melchor sings lovely hrmony vocals  The keys dominate on the first song “Unraveling” until the gentle acoustic guitarists add a nice texture.  What’s interesting is that once the acoustic guitars kick in, Andrew Doherty, on bass, gets to play a more prominent lead riff and also takes over on lead vocals while keys and guitar do the oohs an harmonies.  It really changes the texture of the song and when Christina takes leads back again, it’s really something else,

The song is simple but really catchy with a powerful chorus. and Christina’s occasional high notes are a very nice accent.

I really enjoy when a band gushes to be on Tiny Desk, and Christina seems really overcome with joy (so does Adam later).

I love the keyboard sound she chooses for “Arizona”–an old fashioned organ sound. She sings lead but he guys are right behind her with low harmonies and oohs as needed.  Andrew switches to lead guitar (with the keys handling the low end) which adds a whole new sound to their repertoire, and the chorus is really catchy with Christina’s soaring vocals.

before the final song, Adam says, “I was watching that Shia LaBeouf “Just Do It” video–don’t let your dreams be dreams–and that what this feel’s like.
Bob: “I wondered where you were going with that.”
Christina: “Are you referencing Shia LaBeouf right now?”

Adam switches from acoustic to electric and there’s some great buzzy bass sounds out of the keys.  The guys sings some gorgeous harmony vocals on this song.  I love that the spare use of guitars comes in with some neat harmony melody lines mid-verse.

There’s also a drummer who I haven’t mentioned–he did a lot of interesting sounds–sometimes using mallets but playing a rim shot with each stick, or using the mallets properly.

Christina Cone (keys, vocals); Andrew Doherty (electric bass, electric guitar, vocals); Adam Melchor (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals); Alex Baron (drums).

[READ: October 1, 2016] Ms Marvel: Last Days

This book collects books 16-19 of the Ms. Marvel series and kind of wraps up the story (sort of, there’s another series that has come out and starts with issue #1–so confusing!).  This book also includes a 2 issue crossover with Amazing Spider Man-7 & 8.

This book opens with yet another amazing crossover–Kamala gets to meet the original Ms Marvel, Carol Danvers (who is now Captain Marvel and, confusingly to me, is dressed in a strange suit with what looks like a mohawk).  Kamala is worried thay Carol will be mad that she copped the Ms Marvel name, but Carol is cool with it–Kamala has earned the title.

But the good news is interrupted by seriously bad news, there’s a giant planet hovering over New York City (and is only visible in NYC).  So people are fleeing across the river and causing havoc in her beloved Jersey City.  As if the destruction of the world weren’t enough, that jerk Kamran (she is still trying to get over the intense crush she felt for him) has now hijacked Aamir to find out if he is also inhuman with secret powers.

I have to inject that Carol Danvers is pretty awesome (even if I don’t get her outfit) and I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of her Captain Marvel series.

The final chapter reveals the biggest surprise of all–someone in her family is aware of her superpowers–and is cool about it!  The book (and the series) ends with Kamal escaping all of the needy (including her family) to the high school where people are working togetehr to make the best of the scary situation.

Oh, and as if the potential end of the world weren’t a bombshell enough, Bruno has one more to lay on her.

The bonus stories are actually Spider-Man stories and like a lot of these crossovers, it doesn’t make a ton of sense out of context, so you just have to accept what’s happening and enjoy the Kamala parts.

We open on Perter Parker and Cindy Moon, also known as Silk who was bitten by the same radioactive spider.  And they have serious chemistry between them .

Meanwhile in Ms Marvel world, there s a person committing crimes in the Ms Marvel costume (she has blue skin so people should be able to tell them apart, right?).  But Kamala is there to smack her down (literally).

And then Ms Marvel gets to meet another superhero–when she and Spider-Man literally crash into each other.  Of course she mostly wants to know if he really dated Carol Danvers.

The second chapter is called Adventures in Babysitting and in it Ms Marvel gets to do the Captain Marvel slingshot moved with Spider-Man (soon enough she’ll have no more superheroes to squee over).

This story gets involved more with the Kree–the alien race whom I simply have not invested enough to know anything about.

Silk makes a final appearance as the book draws to a close but I’m not sure if she’s bad or good.  So I guess these bonus stories weren’t that exciting for me.